www.alanodea.com

So I have recently left my role as Business Development Director at Monumental Games to found a new company focusing on what I am calling Social Games.

Who are Simple Lifeforms?

Simple Lifeforms is a new start-up company based in Nottingham, United Kingdom. The team have a passion for all types of games and have worked throughout the video game industry making massively multiplayer, online, causal, mobile and console games.

Simple Lifeforms create games that blend the best features of Online Games and Social Networks. We call these Social Games.

What games will Simple Lifeforms make?

We know that if you’re anything like us you live busy and complicated lives and don’t have a lot of time to play games. We also know that you don’t want to spend a lot of money on new computers, hardware or software just to play games. You want games that are easy to play on any computer, easy to access, quick to learn and fun to play in the short periods of time you have set aside to enjoy yourself.

Our social games will be Free-to-Play. Our games can be played on any computer with a web browser such as Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari. You won’t need to buy a new computer or get new hardware to play our games. Our games will be available on our website but you will also be able to play our games from your favourite social networking site such as Facebook, Bebo, Friendster, Orkut, Hi5 and MySpace. Our games will be available on mobile devices and eventually handheld and other Internet enabled games consoles.

What are Social Games?

Social Games combine the best features of online games such as World of Warcraft and Runescape and also of social networks like Facebook and MySpace.

What’s so different about Social Games?

The web has become a huge social network where everyone is linked to everyone else. People have blogs, social network profiles, characters within online games, avatars within virtual worlds and their all talking, linking and chatting with each other, all day, every day.

We think this is seriously cool.

We believe that this new socially connected Internet is a great place to launch new games that allow people to enjoy fun and entertaining gameplay but also share all that cool gameplay with their friends using social networks.

What will players be able to do in a Social Game?

Players log into our website. Players create a character, choosing from a wide range of character customisation options. Player can participate in adventures, quests and stories on their own or with friends. Players gather items, prizes and rewards as part of their adventures. Players will be able to create their own content making items, images, movies and sharing these with other players in the game. Players will be able to link their character profile to blogs, feeds and social network sites such as Facebook and monitor their game progress.

What is the first game about?

In our first game, players take the parts of unborn spirits living in a spirit world that closely resembles the real world, but is more surreal. There is a spirit-world version of London, of New York, of smaller and larger towns all throughout the world. Within each of these locations, players live little virtual lives. They are spirits, trying to see themselves along the path toward being born.

You are a character in another world. This world is only a click away. You play with your friends, sending messages, trading goods, creating gifts, socialising and having adventures with them. You do so from your desktop, from your workplace, on the phone, on the move. You strive to be the best, by being the most active, the friendliest and the most helpful. You check in with it every day, or leave it for a few days and come back to check your progress.

When will the first game be launched?

Our first game is scheduled for launch in the Autumn of 2009.

Original Article Simple Lifeforms

Thousands of gamers who have shared files illegally online are about to get a nasty surprise through the post - a fine for hundreds of pounds.

The makers behind popular games such as The Lord Of The Rings and the Colin McRae rally series are set to serve 25,000 people with the legal notices.

The families targeted must then pay £300 to settle out of court or face the possibility of a trial.

They are accused of sharing games by top makers Atari, Codemasters, Topware Interactive, Reality Pump and Techland, illegally.

Roger Billens from the law firm leading the action, Davenport Lyons, said his clients were “incensed” by the large numbers of file-sharers.

“In the first 14 days since Topware Interactive released Dream Pinball 3D it sold 800 legitimate copies but was illegally downloaded 12,000 times. Hopefully people will think twice if they risk being taken to court,” he said.

Partner David Gore blamed faster internet download speeds for the problem and said it results in “millions of pounds of losses to copyright owners”.

The scale of the crackdown dwarfs the efforts made by the UK music business against illegal downloaders as they have reportedly launched action against just 150 people in the last decade.

Original Article: http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Technology/Crackdown-On-Game-Downloads-Thousands-Of-UK-Households-Hit-By-Fine-From-Lawyers-Davenport-Lyons/Article/200808315082665?lpos=Technology_0 

Let me first say that whilst downloading media in any format be that music, video games, TV, film is illegal and cannot under law be condoned I am disgusted with a video game industry and companies such as Atari, Codemasters, Topware Interactive, Reality Pump and Techland that would seek to fine its customers for trying to download illegal copies of their games.

The article states that 25,000 people are to be issued with illegal notices and the families face £300 fines. I cannot help but think that when these 25,000 consumers and their families are fined £300, effectively labelling them as criminals and thieves, they will stop buying video games from the companies that are trying to fine them. I know I certainly would.

We are living in a day where the average video game consumer is a loyal member of multiple online communities, blogs, consumer portals and other public facing websites where great interactive communities of game fans swap stories, reviews, articles, news and lets be fair a certain amount of illegal downloaded software.

Suing these people can only lead to 25,000 irate and vocal video game fans blacklisting the video game developers and publishers that have fined their most ardent fans. This action will only lead to less sales for the offended publishers and video games developers as their irate fan base stops buying their products altogether.

These companies must find a better way to address software piracy than enforcing legal action on its own customers. These are not criminal overloads with secretive game disc copying factories hidden in underground silos. These are UK families, children, sons, daughters, school children, workers, students, customers and above all game fans.

If I may directly address Roger Billens from the law firm leading the action, Davenport Lyons, comment where he says “In the first 14 days since Topware Interactive released Dream Pinball 3D it sold 800 legitimate copies but was illegally downloaded 12,000 times. Hopefully people will think twice if they risk being taken to court,” he said.

Well Roger let’s see if Topware Interactive sell even 800 copies of the next version of Dream Pinball 3D when their 25,000 biggest fans have been forced to pay £300 in legal fine and their respective mums have stopped their weekly allowance and banned them from playing video games in the house forever.

This strategy displays in my mind extremely limited vision and to me seems similar to trying to sue drug users for injecting drugs instead of trying to convict drug dealers. If you were providing proper legal advice to your clients you would stop taking their money and provide them with a strategy of legal measures that tackle the root cause of file sharing and illegal downloads and not the consumers that buy your clients products.

If I was one of the people being fined I would make sure to go onto your favourite forums, blogs and online game communities and your file sharing networks and boycott the video game publishers that are trying to blame you for video game piracy. You the consumer should not be forced to take this abuse. You are these companies’ biggest fans, you are the kids, the low paid workers, the students, you are the technical generation, you are the video game developers and consumers of the future.

Football Superstars just reached “Feature Complete” which means that we now have a team of external testers working on the game full time.

Feature Complete is an exciting and extremely important period of the game development process where we continually test and fix the game getting it ready to open Football Superstars up for the first time to real players during our Beta testing phase. Beta testing will be starting over the next few months, so be sure to keep a look out for future information in our regular newsletter, website articles and blog postings.

I’d like to take some time and tell you about the team that work on Football Superstars. Making a game such as Football Superstars, or any Massively Multi-player Online (MMO) game, takes a group of extremely talented and dedicated people working together with skills from all sorts of backgrounds, areas and industries. So what do these people do all day and how does that relate to creating the best possible football game for fans now and in the future?

The Football Superstars development team is made up of three core teams that work solely on making Football Superstars as good as it possibly can.

The first team is composed of the artists and animators and is unimaginatively called the “Art Team.” Here we create all the cool designs for the characters, user Interface, 3D buildings, landscapes, towns, vehicles, and artistic material within the game.

In this team there are animators fine tuning all the motion capture data for the characters in the game. 3D artists and modellers develop all the 3D models for characters, buildings, environments, exteriors, interiors and items that populate the virtual world and football stadia within the Football Superstars game. 2D and 3D graphic designers work on all the other images, icons, interfaces and artwork that allow players to understand and interact with what is happing within the game.

Our second core group is the “Design Team.” As the name implies it is within this group that we generate all the game ideas, game play and features that will appear in the game are created. This team is made up of game designers, project managers and scripters. Game designers imagine, develop and implement all the game play features and functionality of the game; testing these features to see how they work and their fun quotient. Project managers oversee the design process, scheduling when the feature makes it into the game.

The scripter’s work on making all the characters, items and buildings “smart,” by adding “artificial intelligence” controls and behaviours so the game knows how a player trains their character, what should happen when a player clicks on a door or building, who should say what when a player approaches and what stores sell what items within the Football Superstars world.

The final third major department is what we call “Code.” The Code Team have the major task of building all the functionality of the game; developing and testing the technology platform and systems that make Football Superstars run, operate and render to the various computer platforms. Code also has the huge task of creating the foundation around which all the other teams add their content and features.

All of these development teams work together to create Football Superstars and make it the best possible game for players. We don’t always agree, we don’t always get it right first time, but we are all dedicated to creating the best game we can and having a lot of fun along the way.

We’re always looking out for talent and passionate people that can join the Football Superstars team so if you really think you have something to offer and you’re passionate about developing games, football and the online community why don’t you go over to the Monumental Games website www.monumetnalgames.com and send us your details.

Link

http://footballsuperstars.com/post/feature_complete_part_2_10/

Football Superstars has just reached a major point in the development process. This “milestone” is what game developers call “Feature Complete”. Feature Complete is the period of a video game project where the features that will make it into the final build of the game have been finalised and agreed upon.

The development team at Monumental have been working on Football Superstars at the Nottingham, UK office since September 2005. The team of designers, programmers, artists, service and administrative personal have generated a huge amount of great ideas on how to make Football Superstars the most innovative, exciting and entertaining Massively Multi-player Online Football game possible.

Obviously all those great ideas can’t make it into the game at launch. The team have to decide which features have to be included in the launch version of the game and what features will be included in a future patch or update after the game has gone live. The development team have now agreed upon and finished initial development of all the features that will make it into the Football Superstars games that players will get to see at launch.

It is always a tough decision for a development team choosing which features make it into the final launch version of the game and which have to be put on the shelf for later. Every member of the team has an interest in various features and the each team member has their own favourite features that they have worked on, proposed or just think are cool. Whilst all the ideas we have come up with will eventually make it into the game there comes a point where the team have to choose a mix of features that are going to be the most fun to play with in the final game.

The team at Monumental are now dedicated to making the final features included in the launch version of the game as stable, secure and entertaining as possible for players at launch. At feature complete the entire team now move from new feature development to a whole range of processes and procedures that allow the final features to be tested internally, externally with professional testers and beta players and to polish and balance those features ready for launch into the market for players of the game to enjoy.

Players will be able to enjoy the fruits of the labour of the development team as they get ready to move the game from internal development, testing and experimentation to getting the game ready for external testing, bug fixing and eventually Beta testing. In the next few months the team will test all the final features for bugs and move them to a stage where they can get evaluated by first internal testers then a team of professional external testers and over the next few months into the hands of real players in our official Beta testing period.

The team are extremely excited about this period of game development and are looking forward to giving players access to the Football Superstars game and begin playing all the features they have worked on for so long.

Link

http://www.footballsuperstars.com/post/feature_complete_6/

Nottingham, UK. 30 November 2007 – MMO middleware and online game developer Monumental Games achieve double success in this year’s Future 500, published in UK national newspaper The Observer.

In the supplement, which identifies key figures in up-and-coming companies, both CEO Rik Alexander and Business and Marketing Manager Alan O’Dea were hailed as ‘Rising Stars’.

From small tea producers to new energy stars, Observers The Future 500 is ‘a celebration of the collective passion and determination which is breeding business growth across the country’.

“Obviously it is an honour to be selected for inclusion in the Future 500, but I feel this reflects the hard work of all Monumental employees as opposed to just being a personal accolade,” says CEO Rik Alexander.

The list of 500 individuals, representing ten business categories, has been developed in partnership with trade publications and judges. Luminaries worthy of praise were “picked because of their clear persistence, passion and devotion to achieving greatness in their professional life”.

Ed Bartlett, media category judge, from IGA Worldwide comments: “The quality of entrants to the media category has been astonishing, which bodes extremely well for the future media landscape in the UK.”

Link [ http://observer.guardian.co.uk/cvtf500/story/0,,2215125,00.html ]

So we have been hard at work at Monumental for quite some time trying to get our new licence for our Massively Multiplayer Online technology suite launched. We have been inundated by requests by start-up MMO companies with great ideas who don’t want to or can’t pay the extremely expensive costs for a top-tier professional middleware solution. These individuals and teams are dynamic, innovative, talented and creative and we really wanted to be able to offer them a solution that allowed them to take their ideas to the next level. We at monumental are game developers first and foremost and we wanted to change the dynamics of game development middleware by allowing game developers the chance to make new innovative MMO games without the massive typical barriers to entry to getting game prototypes and demos produced. The response to this has been spectacular and personally I am extremely proud of what we have done.

Nottingham, UK. 16 October 2007 - MMO middleware and online game developer Monumental Games are now offering a fee-free ‘Prototype Licence’ for their Monumental Technology Suite (MTS) to help developers take their MMO game concepts to next level.Developing an MMO game is a daunting task at the best of times, but when the costs of licensing a commercial game engine are taken into account, it can seem all but impossible to get a project off the ground.

Monumental whose suite of tools for MMO production has been developed continuously for the last 7 years, is changing this situation by offering a new fee-free ‘Prototype Licence’.

“The nature of game development is changing in a fundamental manner, and it is game developers with new ideas, concepts and methods that will champion growth within our industry. Monumental are committed to minimising the challenges for such developers.” says Paul Mayze, Business and Marketing Manager, Technology.

Intended for smaller development studios, who are typically restricted by the substantial middleware investment required for MMO titles, the new licence allows full, unrestricted use of the Monumental Technology Suite.

Under the new model, studios can develop a polished, operational prototype of their product. This will in turn help game developers secure funding, publishing, and distribution deals.

“Although historically the Monumental Technology Suite has been an engine of choice for larger developers, we are still very much on the side of smaller studios,” says Rik Alexander CEO. “While smaller studios have the imagination, inspiration and drive to create the next generation of MMO titles, sometimes they need a leg-up, financially speaking to kick-start their projects. Our new Prototype Licence, with our revised developer support programme, will help them move to the next level.”

Monumental Games’ commitment to MTS is reinforced by their own use of the suite in developing the forthcoming MMO ‘Football Superstars’ in conjunction with CyberSports.

For further information, please contact:

Paul Mayze, Business & Marketing Manager, Technology.

Monumental Games
Floor 2
11 King Street
Nottingham
Nottinghamshire
NG1 2AY

E-Mail: enquiries@monumentalgames.com
Phone: +44 (0) 115 958 3178

About Monumental Games

Monumental Games (Nottingham, UK) is a game development studio specialising in the design, production, operation and management of large-scale consumer MMO game products for the global marketplace.

Monumental Games develop the Monumental Technology Suite (MTS), a complete MMO game development middleware solution. MTS enables MMO developers to focus on content development, product quality, creativity, added-value, USP features and innovation. MTS contains everything investors, publishers, developers, educators, governments, researchers and media/license owners need to take MMO products quickly, securely and cost effectively to market.

Monumental will be presenting a session on Thursday 25 October during the Game Production Day focusing on the skills used throughout the multiple stages of Massivly Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) Development .

Skills Week’ consists of 5 day-long seminars open to practitioners with experience of videogames and related industries, such as design, web work, animation, film and TV. It will run from the 22nd to the 26th of October as part of the London Games Festival.

Following last year’s successful ‘The Secrets of Games Production’ Skillset now present a larger and more comprehensive series of master classes and workshops. Aimed at upskilling the games workforce and enabling those interested in transferring from other sectors, Skills Week will support all people interested in finding work in videogames.

Location: Central st. martins (Map)

Production is the key to modern game design, as it can deliver vital optimisation in an environment with multi-million pound budgets and teams of 60 -120 developers.

Thursday at Central St. Martins will offer a glimpse into the work of game producers from all parts of the games industry.

• 10:00 Modern Console Production Techniques - Sion Lenton, Blitz Games
• 11:00 Break
• 11:15 Producing Viva Pinata - Steve Brand, Producer, Rare
• 12:15 LUNCH
• 13:00 MMO’s are a service not a game - Alan O’Dea & Paul Mayze, Monumental Games
• 14:00 Is Agile - The silver bullet ?
• 15:00 Break
• 15:15 What is an assitant producer - Toby Allen, Sumo
• 16:30 Close

Link [ Link ]

If you dream of life as a football star, a Nottingham company wants you to make those dreams become a reality… a virtual reality that is.

A new computer game created in Nottingham is set to make people all over the world into ‘Football Superstars’.

Monumental Games is two years old and has so far been doing work behind the scenes for other games companies.

“We’ve now about 38 staff in Nottingham. There’s always been a very strong tradition of video game companies here,” says Alan O’Dea, the company’s business and marketing manager.

Bling

Football Superstars is their first full game, and it allows multi-players to join via the web to play the game as well as live like a professional footballer with a WAG who’ll need plenty of ‘bling and buy’ to keep her happy.

 ”You work your way up the ranks to become a premiership player. You actually play as a single player in a team which doesn’t happen in any other game” says Alan.

Twist

Alan likens the game play to World of Warcraft, where players take on a personality: in this case also owning cars, houses and even buying clothes.

The twist is that the actual football is ‘played’ in this 3D virtual world with other game players at their PCs across the globe.

 G-O-A-L!!!!

The Monumental games team are hard at work putting the finishing touches on Football Superstars. It’ll be previewed at Game City-the computer games event held in Nottingham in October - then released in 2008.

Meanwhile there’s a chance for you to create one of the goal celebrations that will programmed into Football Superstars. Listen to Nigel Bell’s chat with Alan for more details.

Article [ Link ]

Listen [ Link ] 

Game City [ Link ]

Never Mind the Polygons #6 had a more intimate feel than usual due to exams for the games programming students. Nonetheless, an audience of over 50 developers spanning several regions once again converged on Friar Gate Studios, with guys from Eurocom and Monumental out in force.

The discussion was intense at times, covering subjects including games marketing, launching and retaining new IP, and the MMO marketplace. Our panel guests this time, Alan O’Dea (Monumental) and Nick Burton (Rare), spent plenty of time on the mics alongside Iain and Dan. Judging by this and the last event, the quality of the discussion is going up and up, as is audience involvement.

As ever, send us an email via polygons@pixel-lab.co.uk if you want to be added to the Polygons mailing list. Future mailings will all have an unsubscribe link in them.

Panel

• Nick Burton, Rare
• Alan O’Dea, Business Development Manager, Monumental Games
• Iain Simons, Director, GameCity
• Dan Marchant, EM Media / The Obscure Consultancy

Link [ http://www.nevermindthepolygons.com ]

Monumental games Announce Football Superstars

London, UK. 3rd May 2007 – CyberSports today announced its arrival as the industry’s newest and most innovative games publisher. CyberSports’ mission will be to publish world-class global, massively multi-player online (MMO) sports games using leading-edge technology.

Malcolm Clark, CEO of CyberSports simultaneously announced details of the company’s first title, Football Superstars, which promises to deliver a unique football game experience. Football Superstars is being created in collaboration with Nottingham based developer Monumental Games, led by former Climax Online Studio Head Rik Alexander.

An online MMO game for the PC, Football Superstars will allow players to meet within a utopian soccer-styled virtual world and take part in 3, 5, 7 and 11-a-side football matches. Players will take control of a single footballer and will interact on and off the pitch living the football superstar lifestyle whilst pursuing fame, glory and success, striving to join the best clubs, compete at the highest level and progress within the game through skill and sporting prowess. The player’s will exist in a persistent football-themed world and be able to join or form and manage their own teams and careers whilst engaging in various leagues, competitions, events and tournaments.

“The MMO is the perfect platform for team sports games,” said Malcolm Clark, CEO of CyberSports. “This is the focus that has enabled us to bring authenticity and real competition to a football game for the first time, by playing against real people instead of AI. Participants pit their skills against those of others in an MMOG where everyone knows the rules. Breath-taking design, a brilliant team and world-class technology has produced a game with lasting appeal targeted at a huge global audience. We’re all big football fans here and it shows.”

Rik Alexander, CEO of Monumental Games added “Football SuperStars will capture both the magic of the beautiful game on the pitch and also to bring football lifestyle elements like fame, fortune and glory to the table. Football already has great communities and fan bases and we’re hoping to capture that passion and bring it together in a virtual world where players can literally live, breathe and eat football.”

Link [ http://www.footballsuperstars.com ]